When you talk to dyslexics and read dyslexic message boards, you find truckloads of personal anecdotes and figures about high school pressures. Some folks talk about how terrifying it is to be asked questions that they feel that they can never answer; others discuss the humiliation of not feeling bright.

For some teenagers, the humiliation becomes too much. The strain and frustration of underachieving can cause dyslexic teens to be reluctant to go to school, to throw temper tantrums before school, or to play truant. Cheating, stealing, and experimenting with drugs can also result when children regard themselves as failures. Youngsters with learning disabilities constitute a disproportionately large percentage of adolescent suicides.

More than 27 percent of children with learning disabilities drop out of high school, compared to 11 percent of the general student population (24th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2002). According to the U.S. Department of Education, 85 percent of all juvenile offenders have reading problems.

Your teenager may bury her dyslexia under a heap of defiant or self-abusive behavior. Don't be brought down or diverted by these secondary behaviors, or fooled into thinking that your teen is just about adult enough to pull herself back on track.